een disturbed [22] by the evil machinations of
wicked men conspiring against his son; but he declared that 'the youth'
should not be molested nor his power shaken by the spirit of rebellion;
that he therefore came to her with a warning voice to prevent such
disastrous consequences (vol. i. p. 424)."

On inquiry it turned out that the charm of _tattao_ had been performed
on Finow's grave, with the view of injuring his son, the reigning king,
and it is to be presumed that it was this sorcerer's work which had
"disturbed" Finow's spirit. The Rev. Richard Taylor says in the work
already cited: "The account given of the witch of Endor agrees most
remarkably with the witches of New Zealand" (p. 45).

The Tongans also believed in a mode of divination (essentially similar
to the casting of lots) the twirling of a cocoanut.

The object of inquiry... is chiefly whether a sick person will
recover; for this purpose the nut being placed on the ground, a
relation of the sick person determines that, if the nut, when
again at rest, points to such a quarter, the east for example,
that the sick man will recover; he then prays aloud to the
patron god of the family that he will be pleased to direct the
nut so that it may indicate the truth; the nut being next spun,
the result is attended to with confidence, at least with a full
conviction that it will truly declare the intentions of the gods
at the time (vol. ii. p. 227).

Does not the action of Saul, on a famous occasion, involve exactly the
same theological presuppositions?

Therefore Saul said unto Jahveh, the Elohim of Israel, Shew the
right. And Jonathan and Saul were taken by lot: but the people
escaped. And Saul said, Cast _lots_ between me and Jonathan
my son. And Jonathan was taken. And Saul said to Jonathan, Tell
me what thou hast done.... And the people rescued Jonathan so
that he died not (1 Sam. xiv. 41-45).

As the Israelites had great yearly feasts, so had the Polynesians; as
the Israelites practised circumcision, so did many Polynesian people;
as the Israelites had a complex and often arbitrary-seeming multitude
of distinctions between clean and unclean things, and clean and unclean
states of men, to which they attached great importance, so had the
Polynesians their notions of ceremonial purity and their _tabu,_ an
equally extensive and strange system of prohibitions, violation of which
was visited by death. These doctr